I consider this
subject to be crucial to the well-being of our
planet, for during the last six plus decades
following World War II,
capitalism in the western world has mutated
almost beyond recognition,
leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. Our
democracies have
gradually given way to a world wide empire
dominated by a
few super rich elites who control mega sized
multinational corporations
that have run amuck. They have become a law unto
themselves and are now
so powerful that government leaders and even the
United Nations seem
fearful
of making any attempt to reign them in. A once
healthy and successful capitalist
system has allowed itself over this period, through the
dilution and
dismantling of the very checks and balances once
regarded as essential,
to be overwhelmed by this new phenomenon - a
universal rich
club wielding ultimate and unrelenting control
of the planet's wealth
and resources. This is the true power of today.
It might to some extent
be excusable, were these mega
corporations seen to be conducting their affairs
in a fair, responsible
and environmentally conscious manner. In fact,
this can be
said of only a very small percentage of them.
Today, their prime
overriding consideration is profit. No other
single aspect of their
operation is more important than PROFIT. In this
current world
there
are countries which, by law, require companies
to make growth in
shareholder returns their
number one priority over all other
considerations.

Predominant
among the mega corporations of today are the
oil, coal & gas
businesses along with industries
such as automobile, aerospace and power
generation - all of which have
until now been heavily dependent on the
extraction and burning of
fossil fuel. Not only is this seriously
affecting the earth's
biosphere due to emissions, but
these resources are being rapidly depleted. Also
prominent in the
corporate hierarchy are the
arms
industry, which requires constant conflict to
sustain it, and banking,
which in the last decade particularly has broken
free of its shackles
enabling corporate executives to raid the
coffers at the expense of
customers, whose accounts are today deprived of
any meaningful interest
earnings and have been bombarded with an array
of new charges. These
two
aspects deserve some individual attention
and will be analysed in greater detail in due
course.Prior
to World War II, the United States of America
experienced the
'Great Depression', brought about by a local
scenario of corporate
abuse and manipulation of money supply by
influential bankers, similar
to that which brought about the world-wide
scenario of
recession we are tasting
today. A run on the banks by nervous depositors
and the recalling of
all
privately held gold bullion triggered a stock
market collapse and the
resulting economic depression lasted for several
years,
during which period many businesses failed,
unemployment was high and
suicides were all too frequent. It was largely
in response to this
that
legislation was introduced in the USA to
regulate businesses and to
limit their
ability to grow beyond a certain capacity, even
restricted then from
expanding
across
state boundaries. Today even national borders
pose no obstacle and
corporations float around from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction,
registering their headquarters in whichever nation charges them least
tax, provides the cheapest labour and imposes
minimal regulatory
requirements/ liabilities. Rupert Murdoch, for
example, a media mogul
who's array of companies bring in billions of
dollars in profit each
year boasts that he has never paid a cent in
tax. Exxon, the U.S. oil
giant with annual profits in the region of
$45bn, manages to achieve
similar
exemption.
One can see from the list of top super rich
corporations of today, that
America
and Britain set the pace. It is in these
countries that the swing in
the balance of power was to take the lead,
gaining serious momentum
during the Reagan / Thatcher era when
privatization and deregulation
became the name of the game. We were told
that a private
utility would
perform with greater efficiency than it
would if it remained in the
public sector. Our approval was bought with
public share offerings
in which customers received free shares and
an option to buy a few
more.
The real reason for the flotations was to
reward the
politicians advocating them, as they found
their way onto the boards of
these newly privatized companies, gaining an
additional pay cheque,
share options, bonuses and pension plans to
dwarf their State and
Government pension entitlements.

In his book 'Captive State', which is
already over 10 years old,
Welshman George Monbiot reflects on how
Britain's Labour Party, when in
opposition prior to the 1997 general
election, vociferously lambasted
the Tories (Conservative Party) for their
snug relationship with the
private sector, promising to make serious
changes if they were allowed
to regain political control. After gaining
power in 1997, however, they
did a complete 'about turn' and pursued this
cosy private sector
relationship with even more
enthusiasm than their predecessors. Sadly,
the malpractices outlined in
this book have only intensified during the
subsequent decade, until
today almost every public
infrastructural spending program is being
carried out as a PFI (Private
Finance Initiative) scheme. We were told
that PFI's would be cost
effective and more efficient but the
evidence unfortunately speaks for
itself. These
projects, hatched behind a veil of secrecy,
have ended up costing the
British taxpayer many times more
than they should have done, as they are
tailored to
corporate desires instead of to the
requirements of the projects. A
prime
example is the current widening of
the M25 Motorway which encircles London. The
entire work could, George
advised in a 2009 Guardian commentary,
have been accomplished at an
estimated cost of less than
£500m. The contract (for widening 4
sections) got underway, however, at a
cost to the
treasury of
£5bn, even though the Times Newspaper
in November 2006 revealed
the true cost to be no more than
£1.6bn. By May 2009 the
£5bn had increased to £6.2bn for
widening just 2 sections!

With the
corporate sector calling the
tune, any possible less expensive options
are deliberately ignored. Also, many private
enterprises
successfully
externalize their costs by securing
Government subsidies or
manipulating
Government to pay for things like, for
example, a new road to a new
supermarket. It therefore came as no
surprise, at the end
of the Labour Party's 13 year tenure in May
2010, that Britain found
itself in the most serious debt it has seen
since before the second
world war - a financial crisis which the
incoming Tory/ Liberal
coalition had no alternative but to tackle
with severe austerity
measures. The Tories are, however, the party
of the business elite, and
whilst the middle and working classes are
now being hammered with new
taxes, corporation tax (for big corporations
only) is
quietly being reduced
even further.

Just a few decades ago a very dim view was taken
if 'conflict of interest'
scenarios emerged
amongst our MPs, Councillors or others
holding public
office. These corrupt practices were very
serious criminal
offences
which carried severe penalties. A sustained
campaign by
the private sector of lobbying and collusion
with the politicians has
seen the law regulating business watered
down at a rapid
pace.
Today conflict of
interest situations are not only widespread
but, when occasionally
challenged, are often found to be quite
legitimate within the terms of
the law as it now stands. In George
Orwell's classic futuristic novel, 1984, the
Ministry of Truth was the
Government's instrument of propaganda whichbroadcast nothing but lies
and
misinformation. We suddenly
seem
to have reached that point in reality. The
challenge for today's incoming politicians
is to have the balls to
stand up to the corporate bully boys and
maintain their integrity in
the face of corporate enticement or threat -
to demand and insist on
the
reversal of the 'self regulation'
legislation which is so blatantly
abused and replace it with strict and
effective controls to limit
corporate power, to uphold minimum wage
targets (both at home and
abroad) to back consumer demand for more
informative labelling
and to remove from committees and
commissions appointed to protect the
interests of the general public all persons
with business relationships
likely to compromise those interests. The
public deserve nothing less.

What
has been happening in Britain is merely a
reflection of how things have
changed at the other side of the Atlantic, in
the giant economy of the
USA, where those offering themselves for public
office at election time
are almost exclusively corporate executives of
some large company or
other. Today, the Government IS big business.
Whether it is Democrat or
Republican makes little difference. More
important than the
welfare of the populous - making education and
health care available
and affordable
for all, protecting consumer and workers rights
etc. - first and
foremost comes it's obligation to the corporate
sector - to keep it
fat, happy and forever growing.

And this is where we stumble across the first
basic flaw in the
distorted form of
capitalism predominant today - the relentless
requirement
for growth. In
prudish society, where traditional forms
of gambling are frowned
upon, discouraged, often banned, the craving
remains and needs to be
fulfilled. So the outlet is found in the
greatest casino of all time -
the
stock market. But for the gamblers to
consistently achieve a good
return on their money, one element is essential
- growth. No longer can
a company reach optimum size and simply remain
successfully at that
level - no, unless it is in a continual state of
growth it's shares are
jettisoned, thus devaluing the company to the
extent that it is often unlikely to survive. To
simultaneously fuel the
growth of all these businesses, one other factor
is necessary -
increased
consumer spending, but with individual wealth
growing only modestly,
enter flaw number 2 - credit. In order to spend
more we are enticed
to borrow - by hire purchase agreements, bank
loans, mortgages and
credit cards - we are given the means to spend
what we don't yet have.
As the gambling fervour grew, new games were
demanded and 'derivatives'
were invented to up the tempo. These are high
leverage bets placed on
the ups and downs of things like market indexes,
currencies, interest
rates, stocks, bonds and commodities - great for
the 'insiders club',
but potentially crippling for the less well
informed. This brought a
new
level of volatility to the casino, which enabled
traders like Nick
Leeson the freedom to bring about the demise of
a major bank, with the
collapse
of other financial institutions certain to
follow suit in it's
wake, which we witnessed happen towards the end
of 2008.

During the past few
decades, deregulation and inadequate accounting
standards have enabled
companies to grow at a rapid pace, to swallow
competitors in hostile
take-overs, exploit both customers and
shareholders and to conceal
their debts in order to inflate their share
price and minimize tax
liabilities. A stark example of this is the case
of Enron, a small
Nebraska energy company that quickly grew to be
a massive corporate
entity. False accounting concealed huge debts
and kept share prices
artificially high for long enough for the
company directors to dump
their stock, making huge profits on top of the
hundreds of millions
they had already extracted in salaries, bonuses
and pensions, before
the company's spectacular collapse into
bankruptcy. That should have
been the end of the story - lessons learned, but
the part of Enron's
huge workforce who were instrumental in the
fraudulent accounting
techniques were quickly absorbed into other
corporations.

It
has been suggested that the most powerful and
controlling body
present in
the world today is not a single country like the
USA, Russia or China,
nor is it an organization like the United
Nations or an economic
grouping
like the EU, or even a rich and successful
corporation, but a secretive
club of
super rich individuals. It is they who own and
control the major banks
and corporations.
It is alleged by
Alex Jones, a television show host in the
USA, that it is the Bilderberg Group - made up
of the richest
and most politically influential persons in the
world (on
the
internet you will find references to the
Bilderberg club - that it
is comprised of business leaders, influential
politicians and royalty -
press are never invited to their annual
meetings and what is discussed
remains secret).
In one of his tv documentaries it was suggested
that when
President Obama and Deputy
Hillary Clinton disappeared for a day and a half
following their
success in the 2008 American Presidential
Election, they were
in fact summoned to a secret Bilderberg meeting
at a hotel just outside
Washington DC where they were
instructed on
the appointments they were to make in their new
administration and
presented with their governing agenda. There are
also other secretive
elite clubs - Illuminati, Order of Skull and
Bones, the Masons, Round Table etc. where
members
swear an oath of secrecy upon joining. These
organizations no doubt
network and cooperate to achieve common
objectives. I was very excited
when Obama was elected President at the end of
2008, but almost
instantly disappointed to see the likes of Tim
Geitner - one of the key architects and beneficiaries of a serious
financial crisis Obama
inherited - then appointed to a senior role in
his
new administration. What
did that indicate to me? ...that Obama is not
really the one making
these decisions, that the power of the President
is no longer a reality.

Britain is no different. In reality it remains
today with one political
party - The Corporate D0mination Party, which
fields two main sub
parties - A) the Conservative Party and B) the
Labour Party. After 3+ years in office, PM Cameron has already
demonstrated his
commitment to satisfying corporate demands to
deregulate even further, stating
that 'corporate
regulation can be replaced by trust'!
He even says it with a straight face, expecting
us to believe it. He,
as Tony Blair before him, has created an economy
in which much
of the private sector depends on state
contracts, and in which the government’s core
responsibility is to provide them. In Britain, the Tories
have
traditionally been willing participants in this
process, but when, in 1997, a Labour
Government took office, Tony Blair would have
had no option but to
accept the carrot and avoid the stick, though I
have to admit that he
seemed (and still continues in an EU capacity)
to relish the role. Almost all mortals have
their price and we can all see how lucrative it
has been for him.

Dominica,
with it's tiny economy, has almost been spared
the ravages of corporate
abuse, with just a couple of exceptions;
In the late 90's, under a previous
administration, our state
owned
electricity generating utility, DOMLEC, was sold
to an external company
in a deal shrouded in secrecy and which
generated allegations of
corruption. The official figure for which the
company was sold was
ludicrously low and the company was said to
regain its investment
within
2
years, after which it quickly sold on to another
outside corporation.
Since the sale of this utility, the poor
population of Dominica have
been bled by the new owners, paying for the most
expensive electricity
in the whole of the Caribbean. Power outages are
not uncommon and if
bills are not paid on time, customers are
routinely disconnected
without notice, then charged a reconnection fee.
And
of particular significance for our 'Nature
Island' - we no longer have
control over our energy policy! Though
Government is often
publicly critical of DOMLEC, whilst it allows
itself to be in a
constant state of arrears to the company, it has
little leverage to
resist further diesel generation and the
excessive charges being levied
on consumers.

Although Dominica has no known valuable minerals
in the ground,
both local and foreign owned companies have been
given licence to
quarry
aggregate and sand for export, and may have even
been
granted a tax holiday to do so. These operations
have ravaged many
parts of
our scenic west coast, detracting from our
tourism product, devaluing
property within sight or earshot, contaminating
the air with fine dust
which is harmful to the health of workers and
nearby residents and
pollutingour
coral dive-site seas
with slurry
from the
run-off . This is a high price for Dominica to
pay for little or no
visible
return!

Dominica for sale

With our few
remaining resources we must be vigilant in not
allowing them to fall pray to external corporate
exploitation. Fresh
water is
becoming a sought after commodity world wide -
we must make every
effort
to ensure that DOWASCO, the Dominica Water and
Sewerage Company Ltd.,
is not similarly sacrificed to outside corporate
interests. Also, if
our water is to be sold in quantity for export,
we should not sell
licences to individuals - any revenue from the
bulk sale of Dominican
water should go direct to the Dominica treasury,
for the benefit of all
Dominicans. We must also make sure we keep our
pristine primordial
rainforests in tact, for without them we would
have nothing.In
summary, the world today is a dangerous place.
Individual freedoms have
been and are being rapidly eroded and, as a
recent world financial
crisis demonstrated, our life savings are no
longer
safe. The rich club sits firmly at the helm,
manipulating the money
supply and using corporate expansion as it's
vehicle of conquest. Any
nation, small or large, that has resources that
the rich world covets
is fair game for what the U.S.A.'s John Perkins
has branded 'today's
mutant
form of predatory capitalism'. His 2005
book 'Confessions
of
an
Economic
Hit Man', an autobiographical and
analytical account,
became a New York Times best
seller and has
been
followed by two similarly popular publications -
'The Secret
History of
the American Empire' and 'Hoodwinked'.
I
have often heard it said that
the best form of leadership is a benevolent
dictatorship. This,
however, occurs very rarely and there is
nothing remotely benevolent about the Empirical
rich club. Intoxicated
by wealth and power it forges on in relentless
pursuit of more, in
total contempt for both humanity and the
integrity of the planet's
fragile environment that sustains us all.
The
one important - in fact crucial - lesson we must
all quickly come to
terms with is that the dominant factor in
today's world, the corporate model of infinite growth, is
incompatible with the environment in which it is
happening. We live on
a planet with finite resources. These resources
are being extracted and
exploited by a corporate beast with an
insatiable appetite - and they
are running out quickly. Unless we can temper
this appetite and
universally adopt a sensible approach to
managing our remaining
resources, the word of politics and business
will soon degenerate into
a 'dog eat dog' scenario. We are entering an age
when the remaining
spoils will be ruthlessly fought over and the
words 'fair play' will be
a distant echo from the past.

What is the answer? How do we turn back this
tsunami of corporate
domination aided and abetted by the politicians?
The power is still
with the people, but only when they are
informed, unified, organized
and
determined. The general public of the rich world
need to shake off
their complacency - tear themselves away from
the Xbox and television's
expanding choice of entertainment channels for
long enough to seek and
disseminate
the truth (not always easy in today's climate of
political doublespeak
and
deliberate mass media misinformation) - to
get angry
enough to loudly and forcefully demand the
restoration of their rights
and freedoms. Real democracy needs to be
restored or the future will
continue to look bleak for the health of our
world and it's inhabitants.

Publisher:
Robinson Publishing
Joel Bakan is Professor of Law at the University
of
British Columbia and an internationally renowned
legal authority. The
Corporation is a slim handbook telling you
everything you need to
know about corporate power in six short, easily
accessible chapters,
accompanying one of the most powerful and
engaging documentaries of the
year. He starts by describing how the
corporation rose from humble
beginnings to become the world's most dominant
institution—an
institution that determines what we eat, watch,
wear, where we work and
what we do.

The Corporation: The
Pathological Pursuit of Profit
and Power, 2005

This 144 minute
Canadian
documentary is essential viewing, presented in
the following
chapters:

What
is a Corporation?

Birth

A
Legal "person"

Externalities

Case
Histories

The
Pathology of Commerce

Monstrous
Obligations

Mindset

Trading
on 9/11

Boundary
Issues

Basic
Issues

Perception
Management

Like
a Good Neighbour

A
Private Celebration

Triumph
of the Shill

Advancing
the Front

Unsettling
Accounts

Expansion
Plans

Taking
the Right Side

Hostile
Takeover

Democracy
Ltd.

Psycho
Therapies

Prognosis

What
is a Corporation?The
Oxford English
Dictionary defines the word 'corporation' as
a
"United body of persons, especially one
authorized to act as an individual: artificial
person created by
charter, prescription, or act of the
legislature, comprising many
persons". In the late 18th century
English law defined a
corporation as"a
collection of many individuals united into one
body, under a special
denomination, having perpetual succession under an
artificial form, and
vested, by policy of the law, with the capacity of
acting, in several
respects, as an individual, particularly of taking
and granting
property, of contracting obligations, and of suing
and being sued, of
enjoying privileges and immunities in common, and
of exercising a
variety of political rights, more or less
extensive, according to the
design of its institution, or the powers conferred
upon it, either at
the time of its creation, or at any subsequent
period of its existence."

The
online Wikipedia
explains the
derivation of the word 'corporation' from the
Latin word 'corpus'
(body), with historic
examples dating
as far back as the ancient Roman and Indian
Maurya Empires.
Medieval examples included the incorporation of
churches and local
governments. Corporations are specifically
designed to outlive any
individual members and exist into perpetuity. As
European colonization
of the globe got under way in the 17th century,
chartered companies
emerged as the first modern versions of
corporate dominance. Prominent
among these were the Dutch and British East India Companies.
Investors were issued
paper certificates as evidence of ownership and
in 1854 shareholders
were granted limited liability.

Leaders
or
puppets? Whether Tory or Labour,
Republican or Democrat, they all facilitate the same corporate
agenda!
Disfiguring
Dominica's scenic west coast
Colihaut

book - Web Of Deceit:
Britain's Real Role in the World
Mark Curtis argues that under the Blair
government, Britain became
champion of a form of globalization which
allowed big business to take
over the global economy, vastly and rapidly
increasing the gulf between
the rich and poor.

The War
On Democracy [DVD] 2008
Australian
journalist John Pilger delves deep in his
investigations to reveal the
real truth behind the leadership and
corporate exploitation of lesser
developed nations in Central and South
America.

CAPITALISM
a love story [DVD] 2010
Michael Moore is an American from a working
class background in an
industrial town called Flint. He looks at
the disruption brought about
by corporate USA from the point of view of
those at the bottom of the
ladder, who are all to often exploited then
discarded.

ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room [DVD] 2007 The Enron accounting scandal reveals the psychology of greed and
corporate corruption that facilitated the company's rise to power and
also its fall. When Enron went bankrupt in 2001, the principals walked
away millionaires - but later faced legal proceedings and jail
sentences. Employees and investors were left with
nothing, not even their retirement savings.

The Yes Men Fix the World
[DVD] 2008
Andy Bichlbaum & Mike Bonanno use some
outrageous publicity stunts
to draw attention to the recklessness of
both government and major
corporations and their failure to repair the
damage or adequately
compensate victims of disasters they have
brought about. One such
disaster took place in 1984 in the Indian
city of Bhopal where Union
Carbide had a chemical plant producing a
highly toxic chemical, methyl
isocyanate (MIC) using unproven technology
and in contravention of
safety standards. When a poisonous gas cloud
from the plant enveloped
the city it killed 20,000 people instantly,
with a further 500,000 people having
died subsequently as a result of the
contamination. The aim of this
stunt was to shame the new corporate owners
of Union Carbide, Dow
Chemical, into providing compensation to the
victims and their
families. It failed! Had such a disaster
occurred in the USA of course
they would have had to pay up, but when
operating abroad - to coin a
phrase, 'they get away with murder'. Some of
their other targets
include Exxon, who promote inaction on
climate change through multi
million dollar advertising campaigns,
Haliburton, the illegal invasion
of Iraq and the 'opportunity for corporate
exploitation by property
developers' that the 2005 Hurricane Katrina
disaster became, at the
expense of the poor residents.Yes
Men
Fix the World website

John Perkins
was
primed and sent out as an 'economic hitman'
to secure the resources of
lesser developed nations for U.S. corporate
exploitation. As chief
economist of a consulting firm his tactic
was to provide an over
optimistic economic development forecast as
a basis for that country
to apply for a huge loan from either the
World Bank or the IMF. This
loan would be
shackled by a structural adjustment package
then funnelled back to
U.S. contractors who were commissioned to do
the work. Many
countries have been affected in this way -
most of Central and South
America, Indonesia and the Middle East.
Generous personal incentives to
the leadership of these countries were also
used as enticements. Should
they be
reluctant to oblige, then more brutal
methods of persuasion were
employed in connivance with the CIA. In
Hoodwinked he explains why, in
2008, the world financial
markets imploded and what measures are
required to restore confidence
and credibility. So far, his advice has been
conveniently ignored by
the policy makers.

Naomi Klein is
a former Miliband
Fellow at the London School of Economics and
holds an honorary Doctor
of Civil Laws from the University of King's
College, Nova Scotia. She
is an award-winning journalist and author of
'The
Shock
Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster
Capitalism' 2007, a New
York Times and #1 international
best-seller. In this book she
explains how governments dominated by the
corporate interests of their
capitalist society look for ways to push
through unpopular legislation
which favours them at the expense of the
middle and working
classes. They might not get away with it in
normal circumstances so
they use shocking events like Hurricane
Katrina as a diversion or to
sway popular opinion. More often than not
they will not wait till
a shocking event just happens, so an event
is manufactured. The
subsequent 2010 dvd
documentary,
though not as comprehensive as the book, is
well made
and equally as shocking. It premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival and
kicks off with the installation of Pinochet
in Chile in1973, after the
CIA
was instrumental in the destabilization and
overthrow of Chile's newly
elected president, Salvador Allende, so that
the country's utilities
could be privatized and exploited by U.S.
corporate interests. Other
shocking events covered include 9/11 and the
2008 financial crisis.

Michael Ruppert

As an LAPD
cop in
the '70s Mike became aware of the CIA's
facilitation of the flow of
narcotics into the USA. His investigative
work since has exposed a
great many skeletons in the closet of
American politics. In this 1997
talk he explains the interconnection
between the CIA, mafia and Wall
Street and how if the vast sums made
annually from this illicit
narcotics trade were to be withdrawn, many
major banks would simply collapse.

All
available from

online store for
books and
dvd's

Please note that some of the above dvd
documentaries may only be
available in region 2 (Britain and Europe)
format. If so, those in
North America or
elsewhere will
require a multi region dvd player or a pc
media program with region 2
decoder.

Safe
Haven
Real Estate is
the most professional and successful
realtor in Dominica. Based
on the UK model, it has a retail outlet,
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